India’s
grand old party Congress missed a great opportunity to correct itself by
bringing about a leadership change after Thursday’s humiliating defeat in the
parliamentary elections.

The Congress
Working Committee (CWC), which met on Saturday to examine what led to the
party’s pathetic show in elections, repeated a resignation drama played at a
similar meeting in 2014 when the party lost the general election. The only
difference was that there were two players then — party chief Sonia Gandhi and
her deputy and son Rahul Gandhi.

This time, the
new party president Rahul Gandhi tendered his resignation and withdrew the
offer after the CWC unanimously rejected it and reaffirmed its faith in his
leadership.

The CWC also
requested him to restructure the party to give it more strength, momentum and
direction.

To begin
with, Rahul is likely to ask the resignation of leaders in charge of several
states and regions where the party performed badly.

CWC members,
who emerged from the party headquarters after a four-hour closed-door meeting,
followed “orders” and declined to interact with media on what transpired at the
meeting. When confronted, each of them told journalists to wait for the press
conference.

Later, at
the presser, party spokesmen did not explain why Rahul was asked to continue as
party chief despite the crushing poll defeat.

Reports said
a section of the CWC members wanted Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder
Singh to take over as Congress president. Congress candidates had put up a good
show in Punjab by winning eight of 13 seats.

The Congress
spokesmen at the presser remained silent on whether the CWC discussed potential
candidates to replace Rahul.

Congress still
has talented people to take over the reins and transform the party to stop
BJP’s juggernaut. Unfortunately, it cannot think of a leadership beyond the
Gandhi family.

Since
Congress leaders still believe Rahul can lead the party to victory in the 2024
elections, he has to make himself more credible and evolve new strategies to win
back voters.

His
immediate task will be to save the governments in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka
where some of the legislators are planning to jump the ship and join the BJP.

Four states
are going to polls later this year and Rahul has opportunity to prove himself
by avenging the recent electoral debacle.

On Saturday,
Congress had a chance to shed the dynastic politics and pick a non-Gandhi member
as party chief. Such a drastic change could have prompted many people to vote
for Congress in the forthcoming elections. That opportunity was wasted.

The party
needs a leader with a vision to reinvent it. One wonders whether Rahul can
transform himself to take the party to a different level.

He will bring
organisational changes by removing some leaders and inducting his own team. But
such changes will serve no purpose unless the party starts winning elections.

To cite one
example, ahead of the recent polls, Rahul made his sister Priyanka Gandhi party
general secretary in charge of eastern Uttar Pradesh, a BJP stronghold. She
joined him in many road shows that drew huge crowds and there was talk about
the ‘Priyanka wave.’

However, during
the seven-phased elections, Rahul and Priyanka failed to inspire people to vote
for change. In the 2014 general elections, the Congress had won 44 seats. Five
years later, the party could add only eight more seats to its tally.

But to be
fair, Rahul did make sincere efforts to have tie-up with Samajwadi Party (SP)
and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the decisive Uttar Pradesh state which sends
80 lawmakers to Parliament.

The SP-BSP
alliance, which viewed the “scam-tainted” Congress as a liability, rejected Rahul’s
offer and performed better than in 2014 elections by securing a total of 15
seats against BJP’s 62. Congress won just one seat while BJP’s ally Apna Dal
got two.

Rahul’s
defeat in Amethi, the family’s winning seat for decades, has come as a big blow
to his party. Media highlighted his poll loss along with BJP’s historic win.
Rahul’s supporters were shocked when he conceded defeat even as counting was still
under way.

The Amethi debacle
exposed the truth Congress had been denying all along — that Rahul contested
from a second and “safe” constituency Wyanad sensing defeat in Amethi.

In fact, the
day Rahul announced his plan to contest from Wyanad, where he won by a massive margin,
his rival in Amethi Smriti Irani of BJP quipped, “Bhago, Rahul, Bhago” (Run, Rahul, Run).

Irani, who
was defeated by Rahul in the 2014 polls from Amethi, worked hard for the voters
of the constituency after her poll loss and wrested it back from Rahul on
Thursday.

According to
Irani, Rahul hardly visited Amethi after his 2014 victory and he knew he was
going to lose the seat.

The big
question now is whether Rahul can do an Irani and win back Amethi.

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